BarBri
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BarBri is a company in the United States that offers the most widely used bar exam preparation course in the country. A substantial majority of American recipients of a Juris Doctor degree attend a six-week course provided by this company, which features lectures by law professors on the six major areas covered on the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) — torts, contracts, real property, evidence, criminal law, and constitutional law — along with additional lectures on the specific law of the state. Most of the lectures are presented by videotape. Like other bar preparation courses, BarBri also supplies participants with outlines of the topic areas, and several hundred sample multiple-choice questions.
More than one million students have taken BarBri courses, and the company now also offers prep courses for entering the first year of law school.
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[edit] History
In 1967, the company's predecessors were founded by William A. Rutter, who is still with West Publishing, and by three attorneys in Chicago. In 1974, both San Francisco-based "Bay Area Review" (BAR) and Chicago-based "Bar Review Institute" (BRI) were bought by publishing giant Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, and promptly merged. The new subsidiary was officially known as "Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Legal and Professional Publications," but was marketed under the brand name BarBri. Rutter became Chairman and CEO and Richard J. Conviser became president of the merged subsidiary.
Over the years, BarBri has engaged in some rather controversial tactics to reach its current position of market dominance. For example, on November 26, 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that as a matter of law, BarBri's 1980 agreement with its Georgia franchisee was an unlawful restraint of competition on its face. Palmer v. BRG of Georgia, Inc., .
The company is currently owned by The Thomson Corporation, the owner of the well-known Westlaw legal research system. In its literature, it refers to itself as "BarBri, a Thomson business," or "Thomson BarBri."
[edit] Courses and faculty
BarBri offers preparation courses for both the summer and winter administration of the bar exam in virtually every state. In most larger states, live presentations are available in one or more locations during the summer course. The course is also offered on videotape in numerous additional locations, often on or near the campus of various law schools. BarBri also provides a "home study" version of the course, in which students listen to lectures on an iPod. The course consists of lectures on substantive law, multiple choice question review, a practice administration of the multistate bar exam, and in some states, essay questions. Most lectures last from three to four hours. BarBri also provides numerous course books which include summaries of the substantive law, note taking outlines, and practice questions. Most BarBri lecturers are full time tenured law professors, and some have lectured for the company for many years. Among long-time BarBri lecturers are Erwin Chemerinsky (UC Irvine); John Diamond (UC Hastings); David Epstein (SMU); Paula Franzese (Seton Hall); Richard D. Freer (Emory); Stanley Johanson (Texas); Faust Rossi (Cornell); Michael D. Sabbath (Mercer); Roger Schechter (George Washington); Charles Whitebread (USC) and the late Irving Younger.
BarBri also provides bar preparation for the USPTO Registration Examination1 (the "patent bar") under the name "PatentBarBri."
[edit] Lawsuits
BarBri's courses are currently the subject of a number of pending class action lawsuits. One lawsuit was brought in the United States District Court for the Central District of California and is captioned Ryan Rodriguez v. West Publishing Corp., No. 05cv3222 (C.D. Calif.).
The plaintiffs allege that BarBri violated federal antitrust laws by colluding with Kaplan, Inc. Plaintiffs specifically allege that BarBri agreed not to compete in the LSAT business and Kaplan agreed not to compete in the bar review business, thereby allocating to BarBri the market for full-service bar review courses in the United States, thereby preventing a competitive bar review course from being marketed and sold. West Publishing Company, named as a defendant with Kaplan, Inc., denies the allegations. (After the suit was filed, Kaplan entered the bar review business in a limited way by purchasing PMBR, a BarBri competitor that focuses exclusively on preparation for the MBE.) However, although BarBri's review course meets almost every day, there are "off days" that, coincidentally, are often the days that PMBR holds its review sessions, thereby raising the possibility of coordination among the companies.
A jury trial was originally scheduled for September 12, 2006, and then postponed until February 13, 2007. On the eve of trial, a $49 million proposed settlement was reached, under the terms of which class members would each receive $125. The proposed settlement will not go into effect unless approved by the federal court. At least two of the named plaintiffs in the suit expressed strong opposition to the settlement on the grounds that it would not adequately compensate class members and would not effect meaningful change in the bar review industry.[1] The final settlement hearing is scheduled for June 18, 2007. [2]
The class action lawsuit, which is the only class action in history where the class consists of attorneys, has taken a series of controversial twists and turns enviable of even the best legal TV series. Apparently, three of the five class representatives represented by McGuireWoods have objected to a proposed settlement negotiated by the firm wherein each class member would receive $125 from the $49 million gross. The three class representative-objectors, Ryan Rodriguez, Loredana Nesci and Lisa Gintz refused to sign off on the settlement claiming that the money was not enough and that the settlement did nothing to prevent Bar/Bri from continuing in its monopolistic conduct in the future. Instead of attempting to negotiate for more, as Rodriguez, Nesci and Gintz requested, McGuireWoods moved to fire the three as their clients. Loredana Nesci, www.thelegaldiva.com, argued against the motion on March 19, 2007 and won. However, she was not able to convince the Court that the settlement as proposed was not worthy of preliminary approval. Nesci explained to the Court that Rodriguez, Gintz and she had failed to receive the opinion of Eliot Disner, McGuireWoods' lead attorney on the case and antitrust guru, which caused them to doubt that the settlement was in the best interest of the class. Nesci stated that Disner was mysteriously MIA when attempts were made to contact him about the settlement. When the Court called upon Disner to comment on the settlement at the hearing, at Nesci's behest, he reserved his right to comment on the settlement at the final hearing to approve it.
Subsequent to the March 19, 2007 hearing, Disner authored an objection to the settlement as proposed that he circulated to the class representatives. Disner sent the brief to the representatives for their comments with the understanding that McGuireWoods was going to allow him to file the brief on behalf of the objecting class reps. Ultimately, the firm nixed the idea; however, Nesci took it upon herself to lodge the brief with the Court to alert the class and the Court that there existed conflicting opinions regarding the settlement within the firm. In a knee jerk reaction to the filed objection, McGuireWoods fired Disner and strongly contended that Disner's opinion did not reflect the opinion of the firm.
At the final hearing to approve the settlement, attorneys from across the country flew out to the Central District in Los Angeles to attempt to cast doubt on the fairness of the settlement. However, the Court was more concerned with the incentive agreement between McGuireWoods and the class representatives than it was with the fairness of the proposed settlement. Nesci who was present with Rodriguez claimed that she and the objecting class reps had taken an active attorney role as class representatives and that the lawsuit had taken time away from her current practice.
The hearing was continued to July 9, 2007.
Another class action suit, pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and captioned Anthony Park v. Thomson Corp., No. 05cv2931 (S.D.N.Y.), alleges that BarBri has engaged in an illegal tying arrangement by not offering students the option to take the state-specific portion of their course independently from the multi-state preparation portion. In early January 2007, the trial judge denied BarBri's motion for summary judgment and held that the case would have to go to trial. The judge said Thomson may be able to justify the alleged tying arrangement at trial by proving that disaggregating the BarBri course into state-specific and multistate components would undermine the course's effectiveness.[3]
